


Flames

by SimplexityJane



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Angels, Episode: s02e07 How Are Thou Fallen, Gen, Jace Wayland is a Herondale, episode coda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-22
Updated: 2017-02-22
Packaged: 2018-09-26 05:33:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9867083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SimplexityJane/pseuds/SimplexityJane
Summary: Mortals burn so brightly.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Still haven't read TMI, still don't plan on ever reading it, but 2x07 (and the implications in 2x08 about Jace, yes Jace, not Clary, I am really hoping this is a twist in the midseason finale) inspired me.

Mortals burn so brightly. No matter their kind, human or Nephilim or werewolf, the flame of their soul will rush up against an angel’s grace like a wildfire. It is why, Ithuriel thinks, his brother was so concerned, the day the first of the Nephilim turned to him and said they needed his help. It was not simply that they were his great-grandchildren, barely left alive after the disaster demons and humans wrought upon themselves and called divine intervention.

They are like a fire, and like all fires that Ithuriel has witnessed over the years, they are unique. Clary Fray, whom her father calls Clarissa, burns like he does, bright and all-consuming and enchanting to those around her, but her soul hasn’t been twisted like his. She will make a kind and compassionate leader one day, if she lives long enough. Ithuriel has known since she was born, screaming and red-faced, that they are connected. She has his blood running through her veins, though it isn’t quite as pure as her friends seem to think. She was only exposed to it for three months in the womb, after all.

Purer – _much_ purer, a connection he does not understand – is the young man standing next to her. Ithuriel looks, and he Looks, and he sees –

A loyal friend, devoted soldier, questioning everything, hurting, _aching_ –

 _Tessa_.

And Will, the man with his mark. As soon as Jace Wayland touches his hand, offered to this awestruck boy as a gift for his compassion, Ithuriel understands why he could not feel him before.

He loves Tessa, loved her as much as her mother did when she was not yet born. He is the reason she is alive, a child with demon and angel blood who will never grace the Seelie Court as more than an esteemed guest. While she grew beneath her mother’s breast, he loved her, and while she grew into a woman, he loved her. Along with this love he offered her his protection, and through her, her bloodline.

Perhaps, he thinks, giving these children the vision that will lead them to the truth, that was a mistake.

Jace Wayland burns like a crown fire. He will destroy himself if he gets the chance, burn out everyone and everything around him because of his hurt. Something tempers him, a bond to a far steadier flame, but he is on a path that will bring him nothing but destruction. This boy is well on his way to a bloody end in a grand final battle, and while he will be happy to go to it, it is _not_ meant to be.

Ithuriel ascends, sure in that knowledge. His brother approaches him, mighty and beautiful in the way all angels are, and yet he knows this to be Raziel. They know each other, always.

They had no need for language before humans, Ithuriel thinks. No need for privacy before their own brothers began to fall. The brightest of them became the worst demons. There is a poem that the humans came up with in recent years that describes this.

These children with their burning souls, with his blood, will meet one of his brothers in that form one day. He knows it with a clarity that only comes from fate, from something set in stone long before he ever thought of it. He thinks this began the day another screaming, red-faced infant came into the world hundreds of years ago.

“Welcome home,” his brother says. They embrace, not quite solid here, and Ithuriel breathes in heaven, for once not concerned with the world below.


End file.
